Feature Article
The Commercials of Super Bowl XLII
by Melissa Minners
Well, Super Bowl XLII is over and I’d like to congratulate the New York Giants for a job well done. However, as we’ve discussed in the past, there are those who only watch the Super Bowl for one reason. They don’t care what teams are playing. Their only concern is what commercials made the pick this year. That’s right, some people watch the most important football game of the year for the commercials aired in between plays.
If you are a fan of advertising, you know that the most imaginative commercial spots appear throughout the Super Bowl. These coveted commercial spots can be incredibly costly, but companies know that the millions spent will be rewarded as millions of viewers sit glued to the television, watching the big game. That could translate into as many customers if your ad is memorable. Advertising gurus will tell you that there are certain items used in commercials that will guarantee sales – babies, animals, and sex. Celebrity endorsements also bring in the bucks. Thus, these techniques have been used quite often over the years, some very successfully – the Budweiser Clydesdales, the streaking lamb, the Budweiser frogs, the Mean Joe Green Coca-Cola commercial, and more. This year’s Super Bowl took full advantage of the various techniques used to sell, sell, sell.
There was no shortage of commercials containing animals. The big winners in my book belong to Budweiser, Fed Ex and Sobe. The folks at Sobe took full advantage of the fact that Michael Jackson’s hit album, Thriller, was about to celebrate its 25th Anniversary. Thus, their ad featured Naomi Campbell and some Sobe digitally animated lizards dancing to Thriller in an effort to sell their Life Water. The commercial was hysterical with the lizards re-enacting moves from the famous Thriller zombie video. Budweiser cashed in on its success with their Clydesdale ads, bringing us Hank, the Clydesdale wannabe. When Hank tries out for the team and doesn’t make it, a Dalmatian comes to his aide. Becoming his trainer, the Dalmatian puts Hank through his paces as he trains hard to achieve his dream – the background music: the theme from Rocky. And of course, Hank makes the team at the next tryouts session. Fed Ex usually has some funny commercials which show the reason why you should use Fed Ex instead of alternate shipping methods. The alternate method featured this year: carrier pigeons…huge carrier pigeons…car-smashing, GPS and night-vision equipped, huge carrier pigeons. Yeah, you can imagine the mess this alternative shipping option made.
E-trade used the baby technique to their advantage this year. Their ad featured a talking baby showing the ease of the banking options available at E-trade in not one, but two different spots. In one particular ad, the baby discusses how his newfound savings at E-trade earned him enough money to buy himself a clown. In another ad, the baby buys stock buy just pointing and clicking and then promptly spits up.
Pepsi and Bridgestone Tires took advantage of the celebrity technique. The Pepsi ad featured poor Justin Timberlake. Here’s the concept that was used to promote the under-the-cap giveaways you can find when you drink Pepsi: someone sucks Pepsi through a straw; for each sip they take, poor Justin Timberlake goes flying, at one point sliding into a mailbox post, ensuring that the singer will always hit that high alto note; when Justin finally comes to a halt, he finds himself in front of a very attractive female; just as he’s about to use his charm on the girl, a flat screen TV flies through the air and strikes him on the head, knocking him out cold. The commercial was funny, but not as funny as many of the other commercials featured. Bridgestone’s add was much funnier. Bridgestone decided to combine the animal and celebrity technique to show you how good their tires are. First, the driver comes around a bend to find a poor little squirrel in the road. The squirrel screams and the driver brakes and swerves to avoid the poor squirrel. Then the driver comes around another bend to find rocker Alice Cooper kneeling to pick up a snake. Alice Copper screams and the driver brakes and swerves to avoid him. Finally, the driver comes around another bend to find exercise guru Richard Simmons in the road before him. The driver at first speeds up (which I found hysterical), before heeding to Simmons’ screams and swerving to avoid him.
I enjoyed the Career Builder ads this year, one of which featured an unhappy female worker slaving in an office. Her heart just wasn’t in her work…in fact, her heart decides it has had enough and leaps out of her chest, climbing her boss’ desk to present him with an “I Quit” sign before leaving the office. The message of the commercial – “Follow Your Heart.” Also enjoyable was the Coca-Cola ad featuring the Thanksgiving Parade balloons. The Stewie balloon and Underdog balloon are both fighting to reach the Coke balloon, when out of nowhere, the Charlie Brown balloon pops up and snatches it away. Finally, Charlie Brown wins!!
Other notable ads included a Bud Light commercial in which the men attending a wine and cheese party with their wives hide their Bud Light beverages in huge wheels of cheese and other edibles. The Tide talking stain reminded us that stains attract attention at all the wrong times. The Bud Light cavemen showed us how Bud Light inspired major inventions, such as the wheel and the bottle opener – to bad it didn’t inspire the proper ways to use the inventions. Democratic and Republican party rivals got together and became the best of friends over a bottle of Coke. Even television shows got into the act, most notable, Prison Break which featured the stars of the show tunneling out of prison and right onto the Super Bowl football field.
Two separate ads came close to winning the Worst Ad Award in my book. First is the Audi ad that paid homage to the Godfather horse head scene. Next up is the Diet Pepsi Max commercial in which a bunch of people who are falling asleep become revived by the product, causing them to bob their heads to the dance track What Is Love…can you say stupid? But the winner of the Worst Ad Award goes to the creators of the Salesgenie commercials which were stupid at best and racially tainted at worst.
All of these commercials can be viewed at MySpace, YouTube and various other websites all over the internet. Although the commercials during Super Bowl XLII were entertaining, my opinion is that they weren’t really up to par with past Super Bowl ads. In fact, they hardly hold a candle to last year’s ads. Maybe next year’s ads will be better. I still say that my favorite Super Bowl Commercial of all time is the Budweiser Lamb Streaker ad and I doubt that I will ever find another Super Bowl ad to top that one!
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